The Ex Factor

by Laura Greaves

  It wasn’t until he walked me home – and Mack retreated to the four-wheel drive – that I was able to ask Mitchell the question that had been burning in my mind all night.

  ‘So,’ I began as we stood on my verandah, Mitchell’s arms looped loosely around my waist. Night had set by now and the paparazzi were long gone; no doubt they’d had to race back to their mothers’ spare bedrooms to send their shots to the papers before deadline.

  ‘So,’ he said softly.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you a . . . a personal question?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, but I felt him tense slightly.

  I took a deep breath. I knew I had no business asking what I was about to ask. But I also knew I had to ask it anyway, or go crazy wondering.

  ‘What happened between you and Vida Torres?’

  No sooner had the words left my lips than I regretted them. My question hung in the air between us like a noxious gas. Mitchell took a step away from me.

  ‘I’m sorry. Forget it. It’s none of my business.’ Who did I think I was, getting so nosy so quickly? Previous relationships – and definitely the Big Heartbreaks – are something you cover when you’re serious about someone, not after one date with a guy (and his bodyguard) who’ll be on the other side of the planet in a month’s time.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ Mitchell replied tersely. ‘I’d rather you hear it from me than believe the bullshit they spin in those supermarket rags.’

  He sat down at the edge of the verandah and patted the whitewashed timber next to him. I sat, too.

  ‘To tell you the truth, I don’t really know what happened,’ he said wearily. ‘I thought Vida and I were really solid. We met in Brazil, on a photo shoot for some fashion magazine. She was huge in Latin America but didn’t have much of a profile in the States at that stage.’

  I bet dating a megastar helped in that regard, I’d thought wryly, but held my tongue.

  ‘I thought she was amazing. Beautiful, of course. So beautiful. But also smart and funny and really kind. She wasn’t interested in fame for the sake of it, you know? She wanted a profile, but she wanted to use it to help people.’

  Uh-huh. Sure she did.

  ‘We were together for, what, five years? And I thought things were great. We’d talked about marriage, but Vida always said she didn’t need a piece of paper to know how we felt about each other, so I never proposed.’

  He fell silent then, but I knew what he was thinking. He was wondering whether his failure to pop the question was the reason Vida left.

  ‘And Ellis?’ I prompted gently.

  ‘Ellis was my best friend from middle school. We lived a block away from each other growing up in Indiana. We were drama geeks. We could never get the girls! Did you know his real name is Ray Longbottom?’

  I stifled a giggle, which made Mitchell smile.

  ‘So we moved to LA together after high school and lived in this terrible studio apartment in Long Beach and ate baked beans every night. Then Ellis started to get little jobs and pretty quickly they turned into big jobs. They say it doesn’t happen overnight, but it really felt like it did for him. One day he was bartending on Sunset and the next he was opening Memorial Day Weekend blockbusters.’

  I got a little lost in the Tinseltown jargon, but I took Mitchell’s words to mean Ellis got famous really quickly, while he got left behind.

  ‘You’re probably thinking I was jealous of Ellis, right?’ he asked, reading my thoughts. ‘The weird thing is, I truly never was. Honestly. He was my bro. My best friend, you know? I thought it was awesome how well he was doing. Anyway, before too long, I started booking bigger and bigger gigs myself.’

  ‘Were Vida and Ellis always close?’

  Mitchell shrugged. ‘You know, not really. I think he thought she was stuck-up. She didn’t speak great English to start with, so she could come off a little chilly. And Vida thought Ellis was just a big meathead movie star. “Muscles instead of brains” was what she used to say.’

  He sighed. ‘And then one day she told me she was in love with him. Just like that. We’d actually just been on vacation in the Caribbean, all of us – me and Vida and Ellis and whatever starlet he was screwing. I thought we were celebrating wrapping the movie Ellis and I had just made together. Turns out he and Vida were celebrating something else. She packed her bags and left a week after we got back to LA.’

  It sounded so brutal, even for a place with the bed-hopping reputation of Hollywood. It was hardly surprising that Mitchell had thrown himself headlong into his work with such a quagmire of heartache behind him. I’d have done whatever I could to outrun it, too.

  ‘She never told you why? How long had it been going on?’

  ‘I didn’t ask. What was the point? I begged her to stay, but she loved him, not me. I haven’t spoken to either of them since.’

  I didn’t know what to say. Mitchell had been betrayed by the two people closest to him and they hadn’t even cared enough to tell him why. My heart ached for him and I reached out a hand to stroke the side of his face.

  ‘Thank you for telling me,’ I said at last.

  ‘You must think I’m pretty pathetic,’ he said with a wry smile.

  ‘Not at all,’ I said. ‘We’ve all been there.’ Okay, I hadn’t actually had the insanely attractive love of my life stolen from me by a cinema luminary, but I definitely knew what it was like to live with loss.

  There was just one more question I needed to ask Mitchell – and it was another one that I had no right to ask.

  ‘Mitchell?’

  He looked up, that freshly turned-over pain blazing in his eyes.

  ‘Are you over her?’

  His gaze was steady. ‘Yes,’ he said, and his voice was strong and clear. ‘It’s taken a long time, but yes.’

  ‘In that case, would you like to come inside?’

  If Mitchell was surprised by my boldness, he didn’t show it. I, on the other hand, was a quivering wreck. I had never propositioned a man before, and I was under no illusions that that was exactly what I was doing. I didn’t want Mitchell to come into the house for a cup of coffee. I had something hotter in mind.

  He leaned over and pressed his lips to mine, cupping my chin with his warm hand. I felt my body respond at once, pressing against his solid frame with a need I hadn’t anticipated.

  But then, just as with our first kiss in the street hours earlier, Mitchell pulled away. ‘I would like to come inside,’ he said, not meeting my eyes. ‘But I won’t.’

  I felt myself deflate like an abandoned balloon. ‘Oh. Okay.’

  ‘I think this could really be something, Kitty. You and me. Do you know what I mean?’

  I nodded. Even now, in the cold light of near-day, it makes absolutely no sense to me. I mean, I’ve known the guy all of twenty-four hours, and spent a good chunk of that time despising him. Plus, I slapped him and he got me fired. Let’s not forget that.

  And yet I’m drawn to Mitchell in a way I don’t think I’ve ever felt drawn to anyone. It’s as if he’s emitting some sort of tractor beam that’s pulling me in, almost in spite of myself.

  ‘You’ll think I’m crazy for saying this, but I don’t think we should rush it,’ Mitchell had continued. ‘I think we should . . . well, wait. Is that all right?’

  I tried not to take Mitchell’s reticence personally, reminding myself that his heart had been pulverised almost beyond repair just a few months before. I also tried to avoid thinking about the fact that I had one of the world’s most notorious species – the gorgeous Hollywood A-lister – on my front porch, a breed renowned for its indiscriminate conquests, and he wasn’t picking up what I was putting down, so to speak. Wasn’t it just my luck to find myself in the company of the rare Lesser Spotted Chaste Celebrity? And one with a side of heartbreak, no less.

  But I didn’t say that to Mitchell. Instead I nodded again, kissed him goodnight and went to bed, while he drove back to his city hotel with Mack.

  And I’m not about to say any of
this to Frankie now, even though she’s still bouncing up and down on my bed like a toddler on Christmas morning.

  ‘Why didn’t you go for it, Kit?’ she asks. ‘I thought you were going to throw caution to the wind and allow yourself a bit of no-strings fun with the hot famous dude?’

  ‘I was – I did. Things just didn’t go that way.’ Take the hint, Frankie.

  ‘It hardly matters anyway,’ she says, apparently satisfied with my explanation. ‘Once they figure out who you are, the world and his wife are going to think you two are doing it. You’ll get the cachet without the drama.’

  ‘I’m not interested in the cachet, Frankie. I really like Mitchell.’ It feels weird to say it aloud, but there it is: I really like this guy.

  Frankie’s eyes widen. ‘What happened to “where can this possibly go”?’

  I shrug. ‘I don’t know where it will go. Maybe it won’t go anywhere. But I want to find out.’

  The phone on my bedside table rings then, and I’m grateful for the interruption. Even though it’s not even six o’clock on a Saturday morning and no right-minded person has any business calling me at this hour. Frankie dives across me and grabs the receiver.

  ‘Hello?’ She pauses a moment, then slams down the receiver.

  ‘Telemarketer?’

  ‘Worse. Journalist. The cat’s out of the bag.’

  The phone literally does not stop ringing all day. First comes the local media – Sunrise, the Today show, all the daily newspapers – and then, after I’ve given all of them the same ‘no comment’, I field dozens of calls from reporters and TV networks all over the USA, as well as the UK, Ireland and some European countries I’ve never even heard of. Somehow they’ve found the home number, my mobile and even my email address; my inbox hits capacity around lunchtime. Too bad for any potential clients who might be trying to reach me.

  ‘How did you get this number?’ I ask one of the first journalists at the crack of dawn, before I come to my senses and start letting the answering machine screen the barrage of calls on my behalf.

  ‘Oh easy,’ he replies. ‘The snapper who sold us that pic of you kissing Mitchell Pyke told us which house you came out of, and we just looked you up on the electoral roll.’

  Damn democracy.

  ‘At first we weren’t sure whether you were Kathryn or Frances, because you’re both enrolled at that address,’ he goes on – and I’m not about to tell him I prefer to be called Kitty –’so we just Googled. None of the selfies Frances has posted on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or Tumblr look like you, so we figured she’s the blonde and you’re the redhead. You might want to talk to her about tightening her privacy settings.’

  Damn Frankie’s compulsive oversharing.

  Of course, none of the hacks who leave messages are satisfied just to have put a name to a face. They all want details. They want to know what I do for a living and how I met Mitchell and if it’s serious between us. At least half of them actually have the nerve to ask if we’ve slept together yet.

  And all of them – every single one – ask how it feels to be following in the footsteps of the venerable Vida Torres.

  The only person who hasn’t called me today, and the one I want to speak to the most, is Mitchell. I’m still worried I crossed some unspoken line by asking him about Vida last night. I want to apologise or explain or something, but I know he’s on set all day.

  ‘How silly of me to focus my attention on Mitchell’s and my . . . whatever this is,’ I say sulkily to Frankie as I collapse onto the sofa after clearing my voicemail for the umpteenth time. ‘I didn’t realise I have to live up to his ex-girlfriend’s reputation as well.’

  ‘You don’t have to live up to her or anyone else,’ my sister says, appearing from the kitchen with two bottles of Corona in her hand. She hands one to me and plops onto the couch beside me. ‘She’s old news. You’re not only new news, but you’re an enigma. They might know your name, but they don’t know anything else about you. And they won’t find out. I’ve called everyone we know and threatened them all with gruesome death should they even make eye contact with one of these sleazebag reporters.’

  Something tells me Frankie is being wildly optimistic, but I flash her a grateful smile as I reach for the remote control and flip on the TV.

  ‘Speaking of news, do you mind if I watch it?’ I need to see for myself that the world hasn’t gone entirely mad; that people realise there are more important things going on out there than who some suburban dog trainer is dating.

  ‘Sure,’ Frankie says, taking a long pull on her beer.

  The grandiose overture that signals the start of the nightly news rings out and a banner headline appears across the bottom of the TV screen: Hollywood star’s new Aussie love. The words are superimposed over side-by-side still images – one is the now familiar shot of me and Mitchell embracing in the street; the other is a cheesy image of me holding a basket full of chocolate-brown Labrador puppies, taken on the set of a toilet-paper commercial I worked on years ago.

  ‘Oh crap,’ Frankie says under her breath. ‘I guess maybe they do know some stuff about you after all.’

  ‘Tonight,’ comes the newsreader’s voiceover. ‘Is an Australian woman helping to mend movie star Mitchell Pyke’s broken heart?’

  The pictures of me mercifully vanish, replaced by aerial footage of a boat sinking in rough seas. ‘And another boatload of asylum seekers rescued off the coast of Christmas Island,’ the newsreader continues, switching from his upbeat voice to a graver tone.

  I look at Frankie, my astonishment no doubt writ large on my face. ‘Am I hearing things?’ I ask her, ‘Or is my snog with Mitchell the top story on the news? Did he actually just talk about a celebrity’s date before he talked about desperate people risking their lives on a leaky boat?’

  ‘You heard right,’ Frankie says, wearing an expression that makes her look as if she’s just smelled something highly unpleasant.

  The opening summary ends and the middle-aged newsreader appears on screen. ‘Good evening,’ he says. ‘First tonight, he’s one of the most famous men on the planet, but after a bitter split from supermodel Vida Torres, it looked like true love had eluded actor Mitchell Pyke. Now it seems a Sydney woman has won the heartthrob’s affections. For more, we go live now to reporter Erin McInerny. Erin, what can you tell us about the mystery woman?’

  Cut to a perky blonde woman standing outside my house.

  ‘What the hell!’ I cry, leaping up from the couch. I race into the hall and peek through the glass panel beside the front door. Sure enough, there’s an outside broadcast truck parked in my driveway and two men and a woman standing on my lawn. One of the men is holding a boom mike while the other points a camera at the woman, the blonde on my TV screen.

  My vision suddenly telescopes, as though I’m in a dream. The people on the lawn look to me like tiny specks at the end of a long, dark tunnel. I’d thought making out with Mitchell was crazy, but this is easily the most surreal moment of my life.

  ‘Are they really out there?’ Frankie calls.

  I return to the living room in time to hear the reporter begin her spiel. ‘Thanks, Alan. I’m standing outside the Northern Beaches home of thirty-year-old Kathryn Hayden, who goes by the name Kitty. It’s a name fans of actor Mitchell Pyke might want to remember, because the pair has reportedly embarked on a whirlwind romance after meeting on the set of his latest film, Solitaire, which is currently filming in Sydney’s western suburbs.’

  The camera cuts away from my house and stock footage rolls showing Mitchell on various film sets and red carpets – often with the impossibly gorgeous Vida Torres on his arm.

  ‘We understand Kitty is a dog lover who trains animals for films and television shows. A source close to the couple tells us sparks flew the moment they met, with Kitty actually slapping Mitchell after he accidentally collided with a dog she had trained for the film.’

  My house appears on the screen again. ‘Kitty lives in this modest Na
rrabeen cottage with her younger sister,’ says the chatty blonde.

  ‘Modest!’ Frankie says indignantly. ‘This house could be in a magazine!’

  ‘She was spotted locking lips with Mitchell last night on a date that included a quick dip at the beach and dinner at a local restaurant.’

  Cut to a shot of the steakhouse we’d eaten at last night. A bemused-looking man, identified as ‘Dino – restaurant manager’, fills the screen. ‘They were just like any other young couple in love,’ he says. ‘He had a steak, she had a cheeseburger.’

  Such insight.

  And back to Blondie once more. ‘Now Alan, we know that Mitchell Pyke has been single since his shocking split from supermodel Vida Torres six months ago, when he famously vowed he would never love again. Sources tell us Kitty has never been married and has been single for some years.’

  That actually makes me wince.

  ‘Ouch. Way to make you sound like a spinster cat lady,’ says Frankie. ‘At least if they’d gone with crazy dog lady they’d have been partially correct.’

  This gives me an idea. Keeping my eyes trained on the TV, I give a single, loud whistle. In the next second, Reggie, Dolly, Carl and Bananarama have roused themselves from their respective napping spots and assembled at my feet.

  Here’s Alan’s pudgy mug again. The screen splits so we can see both him and the reporter. ‘Erin, has Kitty Hayden made any comment to the media?’

  I lead the dogs into the hall and motion for them to sit by the front door. ‘Who’s there?’ I ask them in the most excited tone I can muster. ‘Who is it? Who’s there, puppies? Go get’em!’ The whole pack is on instant alert, sniffing and scratching at the front door – even deaf-as-a-post Reggie, who’s simply feeding off the barely contained agitation of his canine cohorts.